The Meaning of Chaos: Sonic Adventure
by Garringman
Summary: A retelling of the Sonic video games meant to tell a more actively interconnected story using the elements of Classic, Adventure and Modern era video game stories. After an unexpected attack on his home of South Island, Sonic finds himself in many unknown environments racing to find the 7 Chaos Emeralds against Dr. Ivo Robotnik and an ancient being called Chaos.
1. Chapter 1: The Servers Are

There is a great rumbling.

A large red machine with two large arms and a spiked top peels away from the edge of South Island's highest mountain, behind it there are four teenagers. Sonic's emotions begin to overflow, as he watches the armed machine get farther and farther away from the island all he can think to say is "Where is he going?" At his feet the 7 Chaos Emeralds idly rest, he falls to the ground beside them. Amy gently places her palm on his shoulder and neither of them can muster up a word. Behind them are Mighty and Ray- on the ground, unconscious. Amy softly lifts her hand from Sonic and runs over to Mighty, she looks to Sonic and says, "Will you be okay?" He replies, "Will they?"

There is a great rumbling.

Amy reaches into a bag around her waist and retrieves a small device smaller than a palm, from it dangles a cord with disc shaped resonator at its end. She places it on to Mighty's chest and on the screen of the device an image of a beating heart appears, the heart slides off of the screen and the image of a leaf takes its place. Amy repeats the process for Ray. "They'll be okay, they just need rest and medicine. Sonic. What are you gonna do?"

There is a great rumbling.

Sonic begins to lift himself from the ground, as tears pour from his eyes. He picks up the white Chaos Emerald from the ground gripping it tightly. With a resigned concern in her voice Amy says, "Sonic, the Emeralds are reacting. We still don't know what will happen." "They worked fine last time" he responds. "But you said there were only 6! Sonic-" Amy hesitates to continue as Sonic's fur begins changing color, from blue, to black, then to white it flickers, rarely settling.

There is a great rumbling.

The 6 Emeralds on the ground begin floating up to the one in his hand. Sonic looks back at Amy as the Emeralds surround his body, the white emerald leaves Sonic's hand and they rise to his chest. The 7 Emeralds begin to revolve around Sonic. "I need to talk to Ivo, Amy can you take care of them in the meantime?"

Amy is silent for a moment, she looks upset, "Do you still have your communicator with you?" she says firmly. Sonic nods and gives Amy a wry smile. The Emeralds stop in the air around Sonic, "Do you remember the pray-" Amy starts but stops as Sonic begins a prayer:

"The Servers are...

The 7 Chaos,

Chaos is Power,

Power is enriched by the heart,

Fill this void with Chaos itself!"

The moment the last word leaves his mouth Sonic is enveloped in a light so bright that a color couldn't describe it. Amy shields her eyes, within that light the Emeralds begin their revolution once more, faster this time, faster, faster, they revolve around him, then are absorbed into his chest. The light dissipates revealing Sonic hovering above the ground, fur a golden-yellow color, quills raised as if the wind lifts only him and eyes pure white. Before a word can exit Amy's mouth, he flies off the mountain in chase of the machine.

**1 Year Ago**

A young blue hedgehog is making his daily run through the green hills of South Island, he reaches a border line and stops mere steps before it, this hedgehog understood well the reasons to avoid going any further but just today he felt he could make an exception. He darts passed the line as the green hills slowly become purple hills and a smell that he couldn't describe fills the air, visibility becomes a problem almost immediately as the ground beneath him becomes invalid as a place to plant one's self.

He begins to sink. As the hedgehog's shoes begin to feel less like a part of him and more like a part of the ground, he frantically attempts to avoid making contact with what could barely be called a surface anymore. He begins lifting his socks desperately, but at that moment the noise of wind being fanned away, it becomes louder every millisecond. The hedgehog turns to look only to see a pure silver ball racing towards him, before he can attempt to do anything else the bottom of the ball opens up like paper being slid across a table and a small arm comes out.

The hedgehog goes to scream but the hand grabs him before the sound comes out and lifts him hastily from the melted ground. The hole in the ball then expands, two more arms come out, one holding a hose and the other holding a sponge. The hose hand spins at its wrist before turning the hose on and pummeling the hedgehog's shoes thoroughly with water and the sponge hand quickly dries them up, both hands are then drawn back in and the hand holding them hedgehog pulls him into the silver ball as well.

Inside there is a rotund man with a pleasant smile on his face, he's bald but has a vivid reddish-brown mustache, though his eyes are covered in goggles the smile of his face is still clear "It's a shame this island turned out like this, I call that place the Chemical Plant Zone. Get it, cause all the plants were mutated by chemicals!" he laughs reaching a hand out to the hedgehog, he stops his laughter and continues speaking "I apologize, that was insensitive of me. My name is Ivo Robotnik, what's yours?" The hedgehog is still processing the event, but looking at Ivo's genuine smile, he is put at ease "I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog."

**This Very Moment**

Sonic fires himself like a bullet towards the robot as wind violently slams into his face, before he can think of the problem that his eyes are drying, his body is enveloped in an aura as gold as his fur and the feeling disappears. As Sonic gets closer, he yells, "Ivo! Why didn't you help them?! What happened?! Did you do that?!" There is no response, the robot continues flying away until it has absolutely no other option but to acknowledge Sonic, which happens quite quickly. Sonic grabs the robot by its shoulder and it hastily spins itself around using its momentum to swat him in the opposite direction that he came from. Sonic is sent a few feet away and the robot floats still in the air. Sonic gets close again.

"Say something Ivo!" he yells.

There is no response, not a movement of an arm, not a sound from its core.

The robot holds its arms at its sides with the fingers facing Sonic directly, the fingers all fire towards Sonic and new fingers exit from the holes left behind. Sonic begins to avoid the finger missiles, shooting across the sky like a star, but they continue to chase him after he dodges them. Sonic considers having the fingers target the robot but can't bring himself to do it, as he searches his mind for a solution Amy's voice echoes in his head:

"The Emeralds can't do just anything, but they can do a lot, the same way they respond to your emotions, they'll respond to your needs."

Sonic pictures in his mind stopping all of the missiles and moves a distance from the robot, allowing himself to see every missile at once. A blue light begins to emit from Sonic's body, he waits for the missiles to get close to each other and then backs away slowly. The missiles become almost a perfectly straight line and at the moment that happens Sonic lunges towards the missiles and circles them repeatedly, within the circle a small tornado appears and each of the missiles explode. Sonic turns his attention back to the robot, he launches himself towards the robot and begins attacking its core directly, with lightning fast strikes from both his fists and his feet. The arms are unable to reach him at his current range and his attacks begin to have an effect.

With one final kick, Sonic is able to knock the spiked helmet off of the machine exposing a window where Ivo's face it completely visible. Ivo looks shocked as he feverishly reaches for a level on the control panel in front of him, but before he can pull it, a light envelopes Sonic's body. The Chaos Emeralds fall out of Sonic's body, he begins to descend from the sky. Below them is a landmass, one that Ivo recognizes well. The Emeralds scatter to various areas on that landmass, mountains, ruins, forests, a particular city. As Sonic falls his consciousness falls with him, Ivo begins flying his machine towards the city he takes a deep breath and says aloud for no one to hear, "Welcome to Station Square, Sonic. I hope we don't see each other here; you've been a great help this last year. I won't have to wait anymore; I can begin right away." Sonic's fall is cushioned by the sand of a cool beach, his body lands only once and slides along the sand.


	2. Chapter 2: Enriched by the Heart

Ivo flies over the city, close enough to see the ground but still no lower than a building's roof. Inside his machine he is firmly focused on a screen embedded in the control panel, he makes various inputs into a bright keyboard until his machine hovers miles above a factory with a smiling yellow egg logo on its front. A bright fanfare emerges from the control panel, a smile appears on his face as he turns to look at the screen finding the words "Upload Complete" waiting for him. Ivo claps his hands and waves them around cheerfully with a colorful smile on his face, "Hohohohohohoo! It worked! It wooork- I shouldn't be so loud at…" He looks at the middle top corner of his display "Only 9:30 PM? After all that time on South Island, I forgot how tight this place's schedule is," his expression hardens "I didn't miss this place."

As he gets closer to the factory, a large opening atop one of its pillars becomes visible. Ivo places his machine directly above the opening and reaches for the lever he began to pull before, his reaches for the lever and pulls it towards him; pieces of the machine begin to fall into the opening leaving only a metal ball with a transparent roof. Ivo yawns and stretches inside of his capsule and turns his attention to the display, he presses a few buttons and the display says aloud in a mechanical but soothing voice "Autopilot to Egg Carrier. Is that right Ivo?" "Absolutely! And wake me up when we get there will you." Ivo replies, he falls back into a chair, slumps his body and goes to closes his eyes.

Somewhere in the Forest quite a stretch away from Station Square, there is a small arrangement of trees covering a single wide flat surface made entirely of wood, on top of it lays a large purple cat, this is Big, on top of him is a much smaller wide-eyed green frog and while Big is comfortably settled within his dreams, the frog can't go back to his. He wakes up and leaps off of Big's belly wandering away, Big wakes up quickly after and looks at his belly before rising up "Froggy? Froggy, where are you?" Big gets up and begins looking around.

Big roams aimlessly for a moment until a reflection of light enters his view, his eyes widen, he pursues the direction of the light and at the end finds Froggy with his tongue connected to what Big believes to a yellow diamond. "Froggy don't eat that!" Big yells as he rushes towards him. Froggy quickly retracts his tongue and the car walks over to pick him up. "What's this, I bet it could be a lucky charm, let's take it back home," Big reaches down and picks up the Chaos Emerald as well.

After examining Froggy, and seeing no difference in his behavior or body, Big returns to the hut, but as he walks back, he's plagued with a feeling of anxiety. In the sky above them a metal ball begins to descend towards a brush of trees. Inside the metal ball Ivo remains asleep but is awakened by a robotic hand gently tapping on his shoulder. "We have arrived Ivo" says the display. Ivo wakes up as the metal ball slows its descent and lands in a cup like device sticking out of the trees. Once the metal ball makes contact, the cup slowly descends further into a thin vertical corridor only large enough for the metal ball. He presses his hands to the front window of the metal ball, there's a look of surprise on his face "I never realized how small this entrance is. It's claustrophobic really, I'll need to change this right away but for now…"

The descent stops and a door both tall and wide opens in front of the metal ball, the ball pivots to the right and an opening shapes itself, Ivo walks through it into a brightly lit room with a massive screen on its left side and three flat panels glowing with blue light on its right. The door closes behind Ivo and a loud whirring sound can be heard, Ivo turns to look at the screen, showing several camera feeds to various rooms all with hints of red, yellow and turquoise. He turns his attention to a feed in the lower right corner, there are 4 robots hooked up to equipment seemingly inactive, from left to right there is:

A blocky and green robot shaped almost like an hourglass, with a pair of small red "eyes," and what appear to be handles over them and its lower body.

A black and silver robot, with a white stripe on the left side of its round body, it has very thin legs with large feet and guns for hands, and a yellow visor over a pair of green "eyes?"

A damaged silver machine shaped exactly like Sonic except its hands are like claws and there is one half of a jet on its back, its eyes resemble Sonic's but are black where his would be white and a red glowing light where his pupils would be.

And a solid blue robot shaped similarly to Sonic but much more angular in design, it stands taller than him with much sharper and seemingly more quills. Instead of eyes it has a single lens where it's eyes would be, it has shoulder pads and rigid arms that end in gauntlets. Its legs are connected to its torso by spherical joints and are very thin, but from the knees down it has boots that seem enforced and reinforced even colored at their tips red and white striped like Sonic's actual shoes.

"Excellent, everything made it here okay! It's a shame about Silver though." Ivo approaches one of the blue lights and stands atop it, his body disappears from that room and appears in the room with the robots right under the camera's view. Ivo steps off of a similar blue panel and approaches the blue robot "Mecha! Did you get everything?" he says, the blue robots eye lights up the color green before, the cords attached to it are separated. "I need you to track down the energy I sent you! Bring back anything that resembles it okay." After issuing the order, Ivo returns to the blue panel and disappears.

Mecha lifts its head, walks to the blue panel and appears in the room with the large screen, they step off of the panel and walk in front of the door. The large door opens, the metal ball isn't there, Mecha enters and leaps upward, before it can begin falling again its feet and back glow and light blue energy sputters out from both before becoming like a small fire. Mecha flies directly up and out of the corridor entrance into the sky. Mecha detects a trace of energy nearby on the forest floor and begins to approach it but recognizes a much larger reading a bit farther away. Turning its attention to that reading, Mecha ascends higher and higher until the clouds are only just out of reach, then they begin flying straight ahead.

Mecha roams through the sky isolated within itself following a reading. For a split second, Mecha's detection of the energy becomes slightly more intense than usual. After the spike passes, it sees an island, floating above the sea, far below Mecha's altitude, far above the land mass nearby it. Mecha descends to the island and examines a well-kept shrine with into seven pillars, at the center of them there is a rounded covering held up by its own pillars, underneath it a bright green glowing can be seen, but Mecha isn't relying on sight.

Desire.

It... They... Mecha begins moving quicker the closer to the target they get; they curve their movements intent to grab whatever is under the rock but what's under the covering is a Chaos Emerald much larger than the rest, larger than they expected. Mecha lands before the emerald and it glows brighter on its own than the others do together. The moment Mecha's feet touch the ground, a large net springs from above the Emerald and ensnares them fully. Mecha crouches into a ball shape, their quills protrude like a fan and they begin to spin in place, tearing the net.

Mecha stands and continues approaching the emerald, its bottom portion is buried slightly by a small barricade, Mecha leaps up and stands on top of it. The moment Mecha's feet land on the emerald, Knuckles the Echidna who is roaming one of many similar pillars miles away feels a chill, he looks directly to the emerald only seeing a small moving blue object curling into a rounded shape and destroying the roof to the shrine. Knuckles dashes to the nearest wall and climbs it with a pair of spiked gloves, he then hastily jumps off and begins gliding towards the shrine. He loses altitude the closer he gets and lands on the lower part of an incredibly long stairway but doesn't hesitate and hastily runs to the top.

Meanwhile, after creating a hole in the covering that vaguely imitates the emeralds shape, Mecha flies beside the emerald, extends their arms to wrap around the circumference of the emerald and tightens their grip immediately lifting it towards the hole, but the hole turns out to be a bit too small. They begin trying to force the emerald through, but it doesn't work. Knuckles' footsteps become audible to Mecha.

Fear.

Mecha begins to experience a feeling of pressure and abandons fitting the emerald through the hole, instead flying out through the opening in the shrine opposite to the sound of footsteps but as they get far enough into the air for the shrine to look smaller, they feel resistance. At the bottom of the Emerald is a transparent fluid that stretches all the way back to the small barricade. Knuckles sees this and laughs loudly "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, ha, ha, haaaaaa."

Shame.

Mecha attempts to pull the emerald with greater force, spinning to apply tension to the fluid but the fluid reflects that force and pulls the emerald back to its source with much more. As the covering is still in place, a collision becomes inevitable, at the instant before its collision a bright orange light escapes the emerald and spirals into the sky, then there is a sound of the emerald shattering against the covering, then a hostile falling sensation. Knuckles loses his footing as he feels his stomach turn "At this rate there's nothing I can do to stop the island from falling into the ocean!" He races to the top of the shrine to find a humanoid figure looking down through the top of the covering, it has pure green eyes and looks entirely like water. The being has large human like limbs that grow past its joints into appendages with units that are large in size but short in number. On it's head a single upward horn at the peak and two downward horns on the back. Between its eyes is a brain, totally visible, seemingly unguarded and on its lower back, a small tail. "Incredible, did you come from inside the Master Em-?" before Knuckles could finish the land quaked violently and he looks around to see the sky rising around the island.

"Oh no! I was too careless; I need to fix this fast!" Knuckles begins looking around for the creature but only sees a puddle sinking into the ground, the blue person he saw earlier is now nowhere to be found. He closes his eyes and feels a pull in various directions, after opening his eyes Knuckles takes a deep breath and begins travelling through the area collecting shards from the original Master Emerald, their glow is absent, and each shard is like dull green glass.

Back in the Forest, Big and Froggy are asleep on the wooden bed. Froggy wakes up and leaps off of Big's belly, Big wakes up quickly after and looks at his belly before rising up "Froggy, where are you?" Big looks to his right. The Chaos Emerald sits on the ground next to the wooden bed and next to the emerald is Froggy, staring at it. Big looks over, sees Froggy and decides to go back to sleep.

After Big closes his eyes, a puddle appears beside the emerald, Froggy begins to drink from it and it quickly retracts into the ground. Froggy is shocked and leaps back, but his jump is stunted, from where his body originally ended, a tail has grown. Suddenly, Froggy is compelled the consume the Chaos Emerald and before he considers what he's doing it's already been done. Froggy becomes slightly larger but is immediately overcome with anxiety and apprehension, Froggy hops away without looking back. Big sits back up and opens his eyes "Froggy? Where are you going Froggy?" Froggy doesn't so much as stop, "Where did you get that tail Froggy?" Big stands up from the bed and moves it aside, underneath is a fishing rod, Big retrieves the rod and moves the bed back to it's place before following Froggy into the forest.


	3. Chapter 3: Islander Memory

**South Island – Early Morning**

Inside a shed at the top of a short tree, Mighty lays on his belly over a bed that could be described as entirely pillow. As Mighty's consciousness returns to his body he considers letting it slip again to revel in the pleasure of the great softness underneath him, but his thoughts find the reason for his unconsciousness and that train of thought crashes. He rolls himself off of the great pillow and lands on his back opening his eyes as soon as he collides with the ground, before his eyes is a flat roof. The sound of his collision is met by a shout-like gasp, Mighty gets up and looks in the direction of the sound to find Amy sitting at a table in front of a refrigerator and sink with an expression like a balloon that was just popped. He walks over and lays his hand on her shoulder, "How are you? Are you tired? Do you need anything?" Amy's face eases up.

"No, thank you though. I'm just tired. I didn't want to be asleep in case you guys needed anything or Sonic called."

"In case Sonic called? Did something weird happen?"

Amy raises an eyebrow, "You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

Mighty walks towards the great pillow, there is a flat bed perpendicular to it at its foot with Ray laying down totally asleep. Mighty examines Ray and takes a deep breath before returning to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting down, he starts to speak up, "After you and Sonic went into the Mystic Caves, Ray accidentally opened one of those weird silver capsules and a bunch of small animals came out."

"Capsules?"

"Yeah, there were these weird dome capsules showing up all over the island, they have these yellow uh… Tabs? At the top. You didn't see them before you left?"

"No, not at all."

"They may have been new then, they felt familiar enough. Anyway, we started trying to get into them but the only way to open them was the yellow button on top and you had to put all of your weight into it, sometimes Ray was actually too light, and I had to do it. But we started running around opening 'em up."

"What if they were being kept in there for safety?"

"We didn't think of that, but it was fine 'cause we were right, and the animals never seemed to like being in there, so we were double right!"

Amy crosses her arms on the table and lays her head on the back of her head facing away, she yawns, "What happened next?"

"Robots, they started chasing us down whenever we got close to the capsules and sometimes even when we weren't near them. It took us half a day before we even considered that we could just destroy them."

"Have you ever met Ivo Robotnik?"

"He's the guy who helped Sonic build the Tornado right? I haven't met him yet."

"Oh, that's right, you only got here a few months ago! Yeah, he's a robotic engineer, and a good friend of Sonic, which is part of why he left last night."

Mighty hops in his chair, "What? Now I want to know your story!"

"You should finish yours first."

Mighty waves his hand, "Yeah, yeah. So, there were a ton of robots and we started noticing more of them every day and I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but there were animals inside of them."

Amy blinks and doesn't respond, she furrows her brow, then blinks again, "I'm sorry, what?"

"That's what we said, those exact words, to each other, at the same time! Eventually they started following us around and we didn't want to bring them here and risk messing up their house or the Tornado so for a few days we were on the run. We had to figure out where they were coming from, so we started hunting them, they were in the hills, labyrinths, ruins, everywhere, but the place they all came from was the summit of the island."

"Ivo's lab..."

"But by the time we got there…" Mighty pauses for a moment but the quickly continues, "When we got there, a big armed machine launched right through us and we were both out of rings, so it took us clean out. Okay, now tell me your part!"

Amy sighs and stands up, she paces back and forth, she holds her chin in her hand, "I really wish Sonic would respond."

"Don't your communicators have tracking devices, specifically for situations like this?"

"Yeah, but Sonic seemed so hard to reach out to last night I don't want to be forceful, he was really upset."

"Sonic's doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be bothered, and if he was, you would have already done it with those calls. Why not just go find him, I'm sure he'll understand!"

Amy returns to her seat and takes collects herself. "I'll think about it… So, Sonic and I had to collect Chaos Emeralds in order to even access the Mystic Caves, so we had to go to the Special Zone a few times."

Mighty's face curls up in disgust, "Ugh, I hate that place."

"I know, Sonic's the only person I've ever heard of who can even navigate it, no wonder no one knew there were 7 Emeralds, it's a horror trying to find just one. But we got the 6 we had found and made it to the aquatic ruins at the bottom and there was a mural there."

"Even with a bunch of water?"

"The water didn't actually reach up that high."

"Oh."

Amy chuckles, "On it there was a hedgehog and a person, a race I had never seen before, they had long hair flowing down their back-

"An echidna!"

"You know about them?"

"There are a bunch of them back on Angel Island, but they're super secretive, they spend all their time isolated protecting some ancient artifact, I hear there are murals all around that area. Anyway, what else was on the mural?"

"A massive like, dragon. The hedgehog and the echidna seemed like they were flying…" Mighty nods and points to Amy, she giggles, "Like they were flying in front of the dragon and the green Chaos Emerald was floating between them. Then there was a prayer etched into the border of the mural. Sonic read it out loud and the 7th Emerald just appeared to him from the sky. Then when we came out, Sonic was so excited to show it off to Ivo that he rushed straight to his Mini Metropolis, then we found you and Ray unconscious and Ivo leaving in the Big Arm. Sonic was so upset and the Emeralds sort of… flew into him, then he turned gold and flew away."

"HUH!? He turned gold!? He flew!? What?! That's so cool!" Mighty takes a moment to calm down, he becomes quiet and tilts his head with a firm expression on his face, after a few seconds he begins again, "I think you should go and find Sonic, if the prayer includes all 7 Chaos Emeralds and this is the first time in a while that they've been together, it might be important. I've heard that the echidna murals are usually prophecies. Did the hedgehog look like anyone specific? We should consider the possibility that it's you or Sonic."

"It looked like both the hedgehog and the echidna were pure white and wrapped in light. Sonic was sort of wrapped in light when he turned gold."

Amy abruptly reaches across the table next to Mighty and pulls her bag to her, she reaches in and pulls out a thin pad with a touch screen and four buttons at the bottom corners, she taps on it for a few seconds before stopping and showing it to Mighty. On the screen is a symbol similar to the silhouette of Sonic's face, it isn't moving. Mighty touches his finger to the icon, "Looks like he found a place to sleep," he chuckles. Amy is not amused, "Do you know where this is?" Mighty looks at it again, "Can you show me more of the area?" Amy taps the button on the bottom right twice and the display gets wider and the details smaller.

Mighty examines the terrain a bit, "Oh, that's Mobius for sure. Angel Island usually floats around by there after it leaves this area. If they flew from the edge of the summit, that's the very next landmass in a straight line"

"Is it a safe place?"

"Probably, if he's not moving, he's at least not in a body of water, and there are so many people in Mobius he's bound to find some kind of help at some point. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go though."

Amy looks over at Ray with a sullen expression, "What about you and Ray? You seem fine but usually the only people here are him and Sonic. Are you sure you're healthy enough to take care of the both of you?"

"Absolutely, and if it gets too bad, it's not like we're the only people on the island. We've got plenty of food, there are rings all over the place and if we need to rest, we've got places for it. I promise you Amy, we will be fine. Bored, but fine."

Mighty gives Amy a thumbs up and her face softens a bit, she puts the pad in her bag, straps it to her waist and walks away from the table to a corner far from the beds and opens a hatch on the ground, "There should be a communicator in here somewhere, don't hesitate to call if you need anything extra okay! I mean it!" Mighty smiles and intensifies his thumbs up before turning his attention to the refrigerator, Amy goes through the floor door and it closes behind her. She jumps from the tree and walks through a brush before arriving at a red and white biplane overlooking a hill. She runs to the plane and climbs in, she takes out the pad and presses the bottom right button a few more times revealing a symbol similar to her face, she puts the pad back into her bag and starts the plane. As the plane begins to drive forward, Amy visualizes the path she intends to take, the plane enters the air and ascends. "I hope you're okay Sonic, I'm on my way."

**Emerald Coast – Morning**

"What do you think happened?"

"Who is this guy?" "What is this guy?"

"Oh, shut up, like you've never seen a hedgehog?" "Is it dead?"

"Don't touch that thing Eric?" "Someone should call the police!" "Maybe we should try waking him up."

"What if he attacks us?"

Sonic wakes up to the feeling of sand sticking to his body and the noise of several people crowding over him talking loudly. To Sonic, humans are an uncommon sight so as you may imagine this was very jarring to him, not only because of their race but also the dull roar they're generating right by his ears, because of this odd series of stimulation's he doesn't move at first. Sonic opens his eye just a crack to get an idea for his surroundings before making a move and in the distance, he sees stairs and a building all gray and behind a jungle of human legs, unable to use that information for anything he decides to just get up. Once he does, the swarm of people dissipates, none of them say anything to him right away until a large man in a flowered button up asks, "Are you okay, do you need anything?" Before Sonic can respond he sees over the man's shoulders a biplane having trouble keeping itself afloat, it's heading further into the sand, his face drains and he immediately darts in the direction of its fall without saying anything.


	4. Chapter 4: The World In Motion

**Around the same time…**

**Ivo's Forest Lab – Early Morning**

Ivo manifests on top of the blue panel and waiting for him is the black and silver robot "Good, Beta, you're already here! And your brothers?" Ivo perks up and claps. Four robots with the same shape enter the room but the black parts of their bodies are a different color for each, one red, one blue, one orange and one purple. Each of them share Beta's shape but the red has a human-like sharp metal hand at the end of its left arm, and the orange has larger cannons at the ends of its arms. Ivo steps off of the blue panel and walks over to the large screen, the floor in front of it opens slightly and a keyboard attached to a stick rises to his belly. Ivo begins typing rapidly and an image appears on the screen of a man dressed in military clothing. "Beta, this will be your objective. Today I'll be falsely selling you to G.U.N. as a prototype for your series. I've equipped you with very special hacking tools, use them to extract as much information from their computers as you can and immediately send it to Zeta, don't save any of it internally." Ivo continues, "Zeta, your job is to root through everything Beta sends you, I want you to send me very specific files though. Anything I'll need to decrypt, any patterns in their passwords, any entry requirements to any and all things. Even more importantly, I want every single file with even a brief mention of the name "Robotnik" or the phrases "Space Colony" and "ARK."

Ivo steps away from the screen and walks towards the other blue panel, he gestures and says "Gamma, Epsilon follow me, Delta for now you're free to go or come with us if you want." Ivo walks onto the blue panel and disappears, Gamma, Epsilon and Delta do the same. Zeta walks through the opening at the end of the room and Beta stands in place. In a room with various targets and large door each of them materialize on a separate blue panel, Ivo steps off and points forward as several of the targets arrange themselves sporadically throughout the room "First, we'll be testing how compatible you are with the Lock-On function. Both of you, shoot down these targets." Gamma and Epsilon leave their panels, walk to the center of the room and turn their backs to each other, they stand still for a moment before flailing their gun arms around. "Hohohohoho, it looks like you're dancing, how cute!" At that moment, a burst flies from both of their cannons and separates to reach each target bursting them. "Hohohohohoho, success! I wonder how Mecha is doing!" Ivo walks back towards his panel and looks over to see that Delta is standing still on the panel it appeared on. "Delta, come with me let's check on Mecha Soni-" He puts his hand on his head after stopping himself. "Mecha." Ivo enters the panel and disappears and Delta steps off and then on its panel.

Ivo and Delta return to the screen where Beta has remained unmoved, Ivo returns to the keyboard and presses a button on its upper-left corner and tilts his head to it "Gamma, Epsilon, until I get back try out the Power Laser, and Large Cannon. I've equipped you both with Protective Armor so if you want to try them on each other you'll survive." Ivo sprays his fingers across the keyboard and a recording appears on screen of Mecha's encounter with Knuckles on the alter, after Mecha falls into the water Ivo fast forwards through the footage, Mecha continues to sink and the screen goes black briefly. Visuals return showing a large spiral of wind before a large set of flying islands, the camera quickly approaches a mass of land before going off again. Ivo blinks quickly and then turns to Delta "I need you to go to Windy Valley and check on Mecha, there's no rush, but don't be seen by anyone." Ivo looks at Beta and smiles, "Let's get going then shall we?" Ivo and Beta walk to the wall that opens into a door, the metal ball is waiting for them.

**Angel Island – Morning**

Knuckles is sitting in front of the Emerald Shrine with his feet pressed against the ground, his eyes closed he meditates on the Emerald. He can feel its shards near and fear in the sea and on the land, he can feel people walking near them and the vibrations of machines. Knuckles stands up and opens his eyes. He glides to a bridge leading out of the shrine and enters a large village and walks up to the door of the first hut to his right and says "Knock, knock it's Knuckles" matching each "knock" to an actual knock at the door. The door opens and a tall crocodile wearing loosened headphones walks out, he spreads his arms and lifts hugs Knuckles, "It's been a while! More Emerald troubles?" Knuckle's gaze drops "Yeah, it got shattered this time and it went all over the place." The crocodile puts Knuckles down before Knuckles continues, "Did you ever finish the tracker?" The crocodile turns around and gestures Knuckles to follow him as he walks inside. Knuckles closes the door behind him.

The crocodile sits down at a swiveling chair behind a desk, spins the chair and crosses his fingers as he stops to face Knuckles "But you can literally sense it in your feet. Or is this a job?" the crocodile says as his smile turns into a grim. "I want to get the island back in the sky as soon as possible this time. It was gone for days the last time we had to find it and I still feel bad about that. So Vector, can I expect the Chaotix Detective Agency's help in finding the Master Emerald, if you need it I brought a few shards." Knuckles holds out his hand with shards and glances back and forth at Vector and shards suggestively. Vector slants his eyes and looks to his side, "Knuckles you don't have to be so formal, of course we'll help. I'll tell Espio when he wakes up. Mighty's not here though and I don't know when he'll be back."

"So is it just you and Espio?"

"Not a chance, you remember the Bee's?"

"I do."

"Their kid, Charmy's working with us now. And even without Mighty around I've got plenty of muscle in me!"

"Is that okay? Emerald hunts are rough."

"You said it's shattered though, so it shouldn't do that gross space distorting thing it did last time."

"No place should ever take that long to get through."

"And if it's all broken to bits it won't!"

"I didn't think of that, that makes me feel a lot better."

"Happy to help, now get out there! We'll figure things out here."

Knuckles and Vector shake hands, Knuckles passing the shards to Vectors hand and then Knuckles walks out closing the door behind him.

**Emerald Coast – Morning**

As Sonic races across the sands of the beach trying his absolute hardest to both keep up with the plane and avoid falling he finds solace in a strange mass of land that rises into a loop and ends at the same height it began with. Leaping off of the land mass sends Sonic straight on to a series of bridges, Sonic, reveling in the relief of solid ground doesn't recognize the sound of the bridge collapsing behind him but his illusion is broken when he looks to his side to see a large Killer Whale swimming beside him, unable to make out its intention, Sonic waves at it. The Whale then turns to Sonic and rushes at him, Sonic increases his speed as the whale takes out the chunk of bridge he was just running across. He looks back at the sky to see the plane but its nowhere to be found. For a reason he can't depict he feels a strong pull towards a small island a little bit away from the bridge's path.

Sonic curls into a ball and begins spinning with increasing force before leaping off of the bridge and falling just short of the land. As Sonic begins to plummet into the water the whale rises up from underneath, jaws opened wide. Sonic curls up again and targets the top fin of the whale grabbing it as soon as his body makes contact, the whale begins shaking around and Sonic can barely keep his grip "Sorry" he yells as he releases the fin, flying in the direction of a small cave. Around him are high rocky walls leading to an open sky with brush preventing climbing any higher than their top. Sonic runs along those walls to another hole similar to the entrance, when he breaks through he sees a small sandy area quite far away with smoke rising from it, "Oh no! Amy!" Sonic returns through the hole to his original entry point and curls into a ball, once again spinning himself as fast as before, no even faster, and faster.

In an instant Sonic shoots up the wall and through the hole, then through the air, once he feels himself losing speed he straightens out his body and like an arrow targets the island. The wind in his eyes forces him to limit his vision as he pierces the sky, he feels unease about his trajectory and aims towards a cliff closer to the sand patch. Sonic braces himself to land on the cliff by curling and spinning in the air, when he lands, he immediately straightens out and runs across the cliff leaping into the air and arrowing himself towards the patch again. This time he's right on target, Sonic lands in the sand at such speed that he has to drift to avoid falling into the water, as he lands, smoke dissipates. "Amy! Are you okay?!" he screams while he tries to pace his speed running into the lingering smoke. "Whose Amy?" a voice says as its source becomes more visible, it's a short yellow fox holding a reflective black box. The fox scratches his head and continues "And who are you?"


End file.
